Rupp family

Rupp (Ropp, Ruff), a Mennonite family of Swiss origin. At the disputation at Bern in 1538 (see Bern, section 4) Uli Rupp of Stauffen (probably near Lenzburg inAargau) and Kläwi Rupp of Signau (see Emmental) are named. In 1540 Hans Rupp, a peasant, is listed among the Anabaptists. Rulandt Rupp, of Lucerne, an Anabaptist, emigrated in 1571. In the early 18th century a Rüby (Rubi) of Frutigen, and a Rupp of Sigriswil moved to Clémont and Montbéliard in 1709, and Hans Rupp, of Gunten near Sigriswil, immigrated to Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and later settled at Deventer. Among the Swiss immigrants to Holland in 1711 were Hans Ruff and Christen Ruff, of Sigriswil, with their families.

In Alsace, Jakob Rupp was living at Markirch, and a Christian Rupp of Kühnheim (north of Neuf-Brisach) intervened for the expellees from Switzerland; he may be identical with the Christian Rupp who also settled in Deventer. In 1779 Hans Rub signed the Ordnungsbriefefor the Colmar congregation. In 1805 Jakob Rupp was an elder at Colmar. In 1950 the name occurred only in the form Ropp(e). Dr. Martha Ropp, of Mulhouse, was a missionary in Indonesia (Java) circa 1950- .

In the duchy of Berg a Rupp family occurred in the 17th century. Thiell (Thilmann) Rupp, a son of Heinrich Rupp, was named in 1624; in 1638 he was at Oberdollenhof and Obercassel (Löwenberg area); in 1650 he settled at Heddesdorf (or Gönnersdorf) near Neuwied, joined the young congregation there, and died in 1666. The Privilege granted by the Count of Wied in 1680 names Heinrich Rupp and his sons Thielmann Rupp and Peter Rupp among the founders of the congregation. Heinrich Rupp (1637-after 1700) was the leader of the Neuwied congregation; from 1698 to 1768, when the church was built, a large room in his house served the congregation as a place of meeting. Peter and Thielmann (born 1649/56) were, however, his brothers and not his sons. Tillmann was the leader of the congregation for 26 years, and his son Leonhard (born 1683, baptized at Crefeld in 1703) for 18 years; Leonhard's niece Anna (born 1711) married Lorenz Friedenreich in 1745. In 1837 an endowment by the Rupp family aided the congregation in its period of decline.

In the Palatinate Philipp Raup (or Rupp), of Nussloch near Heidelberg, was tried on 1 May 1529, with other followers of Philipp Plener, but remained constant. Some members of the Swiss Rupp family were found later in the Palatinate: in 1717 Peter Rupp in Ludwigshafen, 1732 Heinrich Rupp, deacon of the Oberflörsheim congregation, living in Gundersheim near Worms; 1742 Johann Rupp in Heppenheim near Alzey. In 1786 Jakob Rupp, of Heppenheim, exchanged correspondence with Abraham and Rudolph Landes in the Deep Run congregation. In 1936 there was only one Mennonite in the Palatinate with this name.

Some Rupps participated in the Mennonite settlement in Bavaria. Jakob Rupp, of Odenheim, near Bruchsal, was one of the founders of the Maxweiler congregation (1882); Johann Rupp was a former member of the Eichstock congregation.

Among the Palatine Mennonites who immigrated to Galicia in 1784 f. there were also Rupps; Heinrich Rupp (1760-1800), of Harxheim, and Johann Rupp (1745-87), of Alzey, settled in Einsiedel and Rosenberg respectively. Johann's death and burial gave rise to the "cemetery scandal," in which the peasants were compelled by the military to grant him burial in the Greek Catholic cemetery. Peter Bachmann sketched the family trees of both lines of the Rupps. Johann Rupp (1849-96) was the first to become a soldier under the law of 5 December 1868; although he was assigned to the hospital corps, his fellow members bade him farewell as if he were doomed to death. The Rupps did not share in the immigration to Russia in 1796, but the poorest of them were among the immigrants to America in 1880 and following. The Heinrich Rupp branch of the family was active in the life of the church. Daniel Rupp (1817-1905) was a preacher (1849) and elder (1855) in Horozana wielka; in 1909 Heinrich Rupp (born 1856) was leader of the new congregation at Kiernica-Lemberg; Dr. Johann Rupp (born 1883, portrait Mennonitisches Lexicon III) was a founder of the "Mennonite Geselligkeitsverein." Another Heinrich Rupp (1855-1929) was curator of the congregation 1918-21; Jakob Rupp (born 1877) was a district judge. His cousin Theodor Rupp was a teacher at the Gymnasium and a collaborator on the Mennonitisches Lexicon.

After the departure to the Warthe area in 1939 and west, Richard Rupp (born 1913), a son of the curator Rupp, took a prominent part in the establishment of the refugee settlement of Backnang in Württemberg.

Rupp and Smith report that Peter Rupp came to America on the "Harle of London" in 1736; Johannes and Peter Rupp on the "Phoenix" in 1749; Johannes and Christian Rupp (Rub!) of Montbéliard on the "Brotherhood" in 1750, and Johann Jonas Rupp of Reihen, near Sinsheim, with the "Phoenix" in 1751. Johann Jonas Rupp settled first in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, and in 1772 moved to Cumberland County opposite Harrisburg. Most of the Mennonite Rupps are still found here. In the Slate Hill congregation three served-—Henry Rupp (1752-1810), George Rupp (1798-1888), and Henry Rupp (1828-98), the first two as preachers, and the third as a deacon.

The fourth of the fourteen children of George Rupp, who was a son of Johann Jonas Rupp (1729-1801), was Israel Daniel Rupp 1803-78), "the father of the local history of the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania"; he was baptized into the Reformed faith by John "Weinbrenner (1797-1860, ordained 1820, founder of the Church of God).

In the 19th century a second immigration of Rupps to America occurred. The Rupps of Maxweiler, Bavaria, settled in Lee Countv, Iowa, joining the Zion congregation near Donnellson, in 1866 moved northward into Washington County and in 1874 to Kansas, where in 1911 an H. Rupp was an assistant pastor in the Einsiedel congregation near Hanston, and Jacob Rupp, at the age of 84, told the long story of the long journey from Maxweiler to Kansas.

Wolfferts, Richard. Genealogy of the Neuwied and Crefeld Rupp family. This family died out in 1839 with Elisabeth Rupp, the wife of Christian Passarin of Crefeld, (copy in the Neff library at Weierhof).